SPLM lawmakers express concerns over new police law

June 17, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s parliament has passed a police law after nine months of debate, but some lawmakers complained the legislation had been forced through in a move that could damage democratic elections next year.

Sudan’s laws must be amended to reflect a new constitution enshrining a transition to democracy after a 2005 north-south peace deal which ended Africa’s longest civil war.

Presidential and parliamentary elections are due next year under the peace deal, the first democratic vote in 23 years.

But delays and differences between the partners in peace who make up the government have led to accusations that the dominant northern National Congress Party has used its “mechanical majority” of 52 percent of the assembly to push through laws.

“We are not satisfied,” Yasir Arman, a member of parliament for the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), told Reuters on Tuesday.

“We do our best to make an amendment but there are some articles which are being passed without meeting our demands.”

He said the police law, passed on Monday, did not address practical problems with Sudan’s police force, which has been used as a fighting force in multiple civil wars and is heavily armed.

Arman said it should be a civil force used only to serve and protect the people. He said the law did not address a constitutional requirement that the police be composed of people from all of Sudan’s regions.

FREE AND FAIR

Arman also accused the NCP of delaying other laws, such as media and security laws, ahead of the elections.

“They are being deliberately delayed and that is going to affect the elections. The environment is not going to be as required for free and fair elections,” he said.

But the head of the NCP’s caucus in parliament, Ghazi Salaheddin, said no mechanical majority was used in Monday’s vote on the police law.

“We’ve been discussing this for nine months … almost half of the law has been amended, all in all we’ve made about 70 amendments,” he said.

“Obviously there is a breakaway group within the SPLM which wanted to register a protest, but it (the vote) was almost unanimous.”

There was no specific count of votes for or against the act which was passed one article at a time, Arman said. The parliament speaker, from the NCP, decided whether there were more “Yes” or “No” votes.

But the deputy speaker, from the SPLM, said the law could be amended after the elections. “It is not 100 percent perfect but it’s a good law, better than the one that is prevailing,” Atem Garang said. “In the future it can be amended.”

He said he did not expect media, security or election laws to be presented to parliament before it adjourned at the end of June. Parliament’s final session before the 2009 elections begins in October.

The NCP controls state radio, television and news agencies and censorship of private newspapers has been reintroduced.

Sudan’s north-south civil war killed 2 million people and drove more than 4 million from their homes. The conflict was complicated by issues of religion, ethnicity and oil.

(Reuters)